A Personal Anthem

Over the years, I've accumulated a lot of songs that play in my head at the oddest of times. Some are sacred, some get my blood pumping, some of them act as a source of irony in dark times, some of them give me the kind of strength that ignores coercion and the abuse of power.

Tonight I heard one of my old favourites, a song which reminds me of my days as a reckless young man with much to play for and little to lose (well, that's what I thought then, in the ignorance of youth). The song is David Foster's St Elmo's Fire, performed by John Parr. The words go like this:

St Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)

Growin' up, you don't see the writing on the wall
Passin' by, movin' straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You'll find you're all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can't quit until it's won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you're a lot like me
You're just a prisoner and you're tryin' to break free

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire...

Burning up, don't know just how far that I can go (just how far I go)
Soon be home, only just a few miles down the road
I can make it, I know I can
You broke the boy in me, but you won't break the man

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire...

I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me

Just once in his life a man has his time
and my time is now, I'm coming alive

I can hear the music playin', I can see the banners fly
Feel like you're back again, and hope ridin' high
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me
Burnin', burnin' in me, I can feel it burnin'
Oooh, burnin' inside of me...

1985

You can see how that kind of song might make a young man feel great about life. But now, looking at where I am and what I do, I can't help but feel a certain nagging irony. St Elmo's Fire, that phosphorescent lightning found on ships at sea, is now just a faintly glowing cavalcade of odd fires in random directions to me.

The problem that I see is one of creeping irony. This comes from the combination of an active sense of humour, a working environment in which things sometimes do cock up but everything is made to look great, and a reasonably intelligent mind able to put many things together into a whole and fairly accurate picture. After a while, everything inspiring sounds vaguely ironic. It's worse when people distort the sacred and powerful for purposes of expedience: I remember posting about such distortion here.